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TRIBECA SHORTS: Linhan Zhang’s “The Last Ferry from Grass Island”

(in this series we present five short films slated for premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival)

DESCRIPTION: Director Linhan Zhang’s film was shot during the Hong Kong protests and shares the story of a former Triad looking after his senile mother in a rustic village, when he is faced with being killed by his apprentice. This beautifully shot live action short film will receive its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and is the first film from Hong Kong to be screened at this prestigious film festival.

A Hong Kong hitman retires as a fisherman on the peaceful Grass Island. One day, his Chinese apprentice shows up, tasked to kill him before the last ferry departs.

Linhan Zhang was a film and television undergraduate at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He was one of the fifteen 2017-2018 Sundance Ignite Fellows, and one of the twenty recipients of the 2019 Adobe Creativity Scholarship. This is the director’s second film.

Clifford Miu graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a focus in producing and directing. As a producer, his short films have been officially selected at over 45 Academy-qualifying film festivals, a number of which are now available on HBO GO, NY Times Op-Docs, Nowness, and The Atlantic. As a director, his short film Porcupine was covered by IndieWire and Short of the Week, while his latest short film Ah Gong was a recent official selection at Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Foyle Film Festival, and the Palm Springs International ShortFest. He is currently in Taiwan producing the upcoming feature film American Girl.

WHAT OUR CRITIC THOUGHT: This short, which was due to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, presents a simple story of an assassin (Yang Wang) who travels to Grass Island with a mission to end the life of her former mentor (Ah Hoi). Even with only 10 minutes of running time, the film nonetheless takes its time, with a subplot involving an elderly matron that is neither allegorical nor precisely revelant—but somehow also is.